Emeritus Promotes Picturesque Locales
By Nicole St.Pierre
When a Walt Disney production staff needed expert advice on how to
create accurate background images for the 1997 animated feature
“Hercules,” they turned to a Trojan: classics emeritus professor
Richard Caldwell.
As owner of a one-man tour operation, Caldwell leads the crew
consisting of directors, artists, a producer and a lyricist on a
two-week junket through Greece and Turkey.
“At first, Disney only wanted to go to Greece. But I convinced them there were better ancient ruins in Turkey,” says Caldwell.
For the past 23 years, Caldwell has been taking groups of
independent-minded travelers on two- to four-week trips through Greece
and Turkey. His now-flourishing tour operation started as a program for
USC students in 1978 and turned commercial three years later. Now, in
his retirement, Caldwell organizes roughly 12 tours per year, mostly to
out-of-the-way mountain villages and little-known islands.
“I’m the tour guide for people who hate tours,” says Caldwell, whose
pay-by-the-day customers include people of all ages—mostly from
America, Canada, England and Germany. “Sporades Tours goes to places
your typical tour or cruise boat doesn’t. And the scenery is simply
striking.”
As for Caldwell’s favorite destinations: “It’s a tie between the island
Skopelos and a mountain village in northern Greece called Metsovo.”
Metsovo has only 4,000 people and is the richest city in the European
Union per capita. A posh ski resort with alpine architecture, it is
comparable to some of Switzerland’s finest destinations, Caldwell says.
“It’s one of Greece’s most picturesque small towns in a unique
geographical location. It’s in a beautiful valley among some of the
highest peaks of the Pindus.”
Caldwell retired from USC in 1999, but not before earning a reputation
as a sharp classicist with a dual passion for travel—and
psychoanalysis. His unique combination of subject areas produced a
career that focused on studying psychoanalytic theory, and how it bears
on Greek literature and ancient mythology. In fact, before coming to
USC, the accomplished Greek scholar taught in the University of
Colorado’s psychiatry department.
In addition to numerous articles on psychoanalysis, Caldwell is the
author of the widely used translation of Hesiod’s “Theogony” (Focus
Publishing, 1987) and “Origin of the Gods” (Oxford University Press,
1989). His latest book, “Virgil’s ‘Aeneid,’” is due to appear in
October.
“I’m enjoying retirement,” he says. “But it’s a lot of work.”
|
|
|
